Romance of the Renaissance Chateaux

Romance of the Renaissance Chateaux

Romance of the Renaissance Chateaux

Excerpt

The Renaissance is associated in our minds with Italy, and rightly so. It is as though the sun had risen first from the Adriatic, but while it was noon in Florence dawn was touching the French hills, and for France the sixteenth century was to be the century of the Renaissance.

It has been customary to think of the change as a sudden one, brought about during the reign of Francis I. by the importation of Italian artists and architects. More careful consideration relegated its transplanting to the Italian wars of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. But the evolution had begun even before these campaigns revealed to the invading Frenchman the superior artistry of Italy, though this revelation doubtless accelerated the impulse.

The old feudal life had passed away, never to return, and petty lords would no longer build . . .